Paparazzi Dodge Legal Accountability

September 9, 1999

Paparazzi is an Italian word that has become the international idiom describing much-despised packs of free-lance photographers who relentlessly hound celebrities in hopes of getting a picture. The word is also used to mean a swarm of stinging, biting insects.

Several paparazzi dodged legal accountability for Princess Diana's death the other day, but morally their behavior was reprehensible.

Just over two years after the Aug. 31, 1997, car crash that killed Diana in Paris, two French magistrates ruled that the paparazzi played no direct role in her death and violated no penal laws. Police initially detained nine photographers and a media motorcycle driver on charges of manslaughter and failing to come to the aid of Diana and the other passengers in the crash.

The magistrates' ruling is unsatisfying, particularly in light of previous findings: The photographers raced after the fleeing limousine, weaved in and out of traffic, and snapped strobelight photos of Diana through the car windows before the crash. Their actions caused the driver to accelerate, change his intended route and take the fatal turn into an underground tunnel. After the smashup, the photographers ran up to the mangled wreckage to compete for close-up photos of the dying princess. Only one made any effort to call for help on a cell phone.

The magistrates ruled that legal blame rested solely with Henri Paul, the limousine driver, whose blood-alcohol was nearly four times the legal limit of intoxiation, who took anti-depressant drugs not supposed to be mixed with alcohol and who was driving much too fast. Paul, as well as Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, were killed in the high-speed crash in a Paris tunnel. A bodyguard was severely injured but survived.

While clearing the photographers of legal responsibility, the magistrates said their actions led Fayed to make decisions that, while imprudent, were a direct response to being hounded.

This report won't end the dispute over what happened that night and who is to blame. Fayed's father Mohammed Fayed still believes the crash was part of a conspiracy by a British establishment unable to tolerate the idea that the mother of the future English king might marry a Muslim or convert to Islam. He vows to spend much of his vast fortune to pursue the investigation as long as it takes.

The photographers claim the magistrates' report "vindicates" them. Hardly. Many times, as in this case, personal conduct that may not be a violation of criminal law is morally despicable.

The magistrates said of the photographers, "Their behavior is an issue for them, and the people they work for, about the moral and ethical rules of their work." Then the magistrates issued an official "censure."

That's an English word meaning a reprimand or condemnation, with the stern implied warning, "Don't do it again."

The paparazzi and the people who pay them need to look deep into their souls for the dying embers of human decency. They must rein in their invasions of privacy and overzealous pursuits of the rich and famous before another tragedy occurs.